‘We must make an idol of our fear, and call it god...’
A medieval knight plays chess with a hooded figure with a pale face. This simple idea has become one of the most iconic, influential and parodied images of the modern era. This was master director Ingmar Bergman’s 17th film, but the first that really reckoned with the idea of the silence of God, the agony of faith. How can you love something that offers nothing in return? These are big philosophical questions. The kind of big philosophical questions that some would argue cinema (or society at large) has very little interest in answering anymore. Happily, we’ll always have The Seventh Seal to help us grapple with the questions that have troubled us for time immemorial…
Against the backdrop of the Black Death, large-scale witch persecutions and the Crusades, Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), a medieval knight, realises that his life is about to be cut short when Death appears to him as a hooded figure with a pale face. The two engage in a game of chess, but, as Death himself points out, “No one escapes me”.
Rather than an accurate depiction of life in the 14th century (this film is not that nor was it intended to be), The Seventh Seal instead allows Bergman the chance to face his feelings about his strict religious upbringing, his early experiences with death (as a six year old, he helped carry the dead bodies from the religious hospital in which his father worked to the mortuary) and the relevance of faith in the modern world. Much of this is cloaked in symbolism and the philosophical musings of the characters but even someone with no knowledge of Bergman would surely recognise that this is a deeply personal film. The dialogue is utterly sublime throughout, and von Sydow delivers one of the great examples of a less-is-more performance. He conveys Block’s world weariness and anguish with a single glance or gesture better than most actors could with an arsenal of disparate acting techniques. It’s an utterly captivating performance.
Gunnar Fischer’s cinematography is equally as impressive. Drawing from the stark close-ups of Scandinavian Expressionism (most obviously The Passion of Joan of Arc), the highly composed silhouettes of German Expressionism and medieval religious art, The Seventh Seal is so visually striking that it almost created its own signature style. You could take any single frame from the film in isolation and know instantly what you’re looking at. This gives the film a weight. A substance. We know that we are dealing with the fundamental questions of human existence, not just from the dialogue but from the film’s utterly unique aesthetic.
The Seventh Seal, like the medieval paintings that it replicates, will endure forever. This is art as cinema. There will never be anything like it again.
